When "Freelancer" Could Mean Employee
Korean companies have long used freelancers as an alternative to direct employment. However, one recent ruling from the Supreme Court - involving a broadcasting channel’s announcer who worked under successive freelance contracts for nearly four years - stated that freelancers contracts may not be sufficient when the actual working relationship mirrors regular employment. As explored in a prior post, Korean courts have consistently applied a substance-over-form standard when evaluating worker status.
Background: Four Years Under a "Freelance" Label
The plaintiff joined the broadcasting company in November 2015 under a program appearance contract to work as a weather caster at a regional station. Over the next four years, her role expanded well beyond what the contract described. She took on television and radio news anchoring, narration work, and on-call weekend duty. She rotated between two regional stations, covering absences and filling scheduling gaps alongside regular staff announcers — coordinating assignments through a shared group chat with her colleagues.
In July 2019, the company informed her that her contract had expired because new staff had been hired. She was given no further assignments.
She brought suit, arguing that the contract label was irrelevant: in substance, she had been a worker providing labor under the ’companys direction for wages, and the relationship should be governed by the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법, "LSA"). The first instance court disagreed. The appellate court reversed, finding that she qualified as an LSA employee and that the termination constituted an unlawful dismissal. The Supreme Court affirmed.
The Legal Framework: Substance, Not Labels
This ruling is based on the court’s longstanding precedents on how to determine worker status (근로자성) under the LSA:
Whether a person qualifies as a worker under the LSA turns not on whether the contract is styled as an employment agreement or a service contract, but on whether, in substance, the person provided labor to the business for wages in a relationship of subordination (종속적인 관계).
The court's subordination analysis examines a range of factors: whether the employer set the work content and hours; whether the worker was subject to workplace rules and supervision; whether the worker was bound to a specific location; whether the worker could substitute a third party or operate an independent business; and whether the compensation had the character of wages for labor rather than payment for a discrete result.
What Tipped the Analysis Toward Employee Status
The appellate decision, upheld by the Supreme Court, identified several concrete factors that collectively established the subordinate relationship:
Identical duties to regular staff. The plaintiff performed the same news anchoring and broadcasting functions as the company’s directly-hired announcers, including weekend on-call duty — work that, the court found, a person operating independently would not routinely assume.
Effective exclusivity. There was no evidence that she took on work for any broadcaster other than the company during the four years. Her schedule — weekdays at one station, weekends at another — left no practical space for independent engagements.
Company-controlled scheduling. Her working hours were determined by the broadcast schedule that the company assigned. Her leave could not be taken without effectively disrupting that schedule, making it functionally subject to management approval.
Compensation tied to labor, not output. She was paid per-program, but the court characterized this as remuneration for the labor she provided rather than payment for an independently delivered result — consistent with the wage character analysis applied in other subordination cases.
Integration into operational structure. The use of a shared group chat to coordinate assignments and cover colleagues' shifts reflected integration into the broadcaster's internal staffing system, not the arm's-length relationship one would expect from an independent contractor.
The Fixed-Term Conversion Issue
Beyond confirming employee status, the ruling carried a second consequence with significant practical implications: conversion to indefinite-term employment under the Act on the Protection of Fixed-Term and Part-Time Workers (기간제법).
Because the plaintiff qualified as an employee — and because the company had engaged her under fixed-term contracts for a continuous period exceeding two years — the court held that she became, by operation of law, a worker with an indefinite-term employment contract under Article 4(2) of the Fixed-Term Act. The termination that followed was therefore not simply a contract expiry: it was a dismissal of an indefinite-term employee, and it was void for lack of just cause under LSA Article 23.
Why This Case Matter
Content production, marketing, IT services, education, and media are all sectors where the gap between contractual form and operational substance can give rise to the same exposure.
The practical risk runs in multiple directions. An employee classification finding retroactively triggers entitlement to severance pay (퇴직금) under the Employee Retirement Benefit Security Act, unpaid annual leave compensation, and potential social insurance enrollment obligations, in addition to converting a termination into a dismissal subject to the LSA's just-cause requirements. In long-running engagements, the accumulated liability can be substantial.
This article is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. For guidance specific to your circumstances, please consult qualified counsel. Also, please do feel free to contact us for any advice.
© 2026 SJ Chun. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced, copied, or republished, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from the author.
